Betrayed

This picture comes from this website, which has some very important information on violence in teen relationships. 

I chose it because to a degree it expresses what I feel inside.

Because of the fact that nobody pays attention to what I say at this point, I feel comfortable expressing something that has been eating at me for years.

There are people in this world who don't feel like they've won unless they've destroyed someone else in the process.

They did come very close to destroying me. But I'm still here. Not unscathed by any means, but I am still here.

I no longer feel like I have something special to share with the world. I'm creating again, but I'm keeping it close in. I will not be sharing any of it.

As for the subject of my ill advised book.

Yes, I did come to love him. And fancy that, certain people who I trusted with that truth were hell bent on fucking that up for me too.

He and I are no longer in contact with one another. He hates me now, and I feel nothing but numb sorrow when I think of him.

You think I could ever forgive the people who brought this about?

They will never be forgiven.

What's next to the moon? The idea that I will ever find love.

Correction--that's somewhere in another fucking galaxy.

So now you fucking know.

Fall of 92

Fall of 1992. I was 24 years old. I was in grad school and had gotten my drug use under control, but the self loathing hadn't resolved by a long shot. Obviously, or I never would have stayed with Kent as long as I did.

He seemed perfect, and I believed I didn't deserve perfection. I became a clinging vine. He was smart, handsome, sophisticated, everything I believed I wasn't. At first he seemed like the nicest guy in the world. That was before the verbal onslaught on our six month anniversary that left me in tears and nearly suicidal. I remember begging him for foregiveness. For what? For existing, really.

I remember dancing to this song with him and thinking I'd found true love. That was before all the verbal abuse started six months into the relationship, and the cheating started a week before our first anniversary. I ended up sticking with him for five years, believing that losing him meant losing everything. Instead, I lost myself. In spite of earning my masters' degree, I still felt like a complete failure.